Method of increasing the efficiency of resin bonded grinding wheels



Dec. 27, 1938. J. R. ERICKSON 2,142,049

METHOD 0F INCREASING THE EFFICIENCY OF RESIN BONDED GRINDING WHEELS Filed Aug. 24, 1938 8 CUTS PER WHEEL FIGS 1 INVENTOR JOHN R.EFHCK5UN BY m ATTORNEY Patented Dec. 27, 1938 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 7 METHOT) F INCREASING THE EFFICIENCY OF RESIN BONDED GRINDING WHEELS Application August 24,1938, Serial No. 226,424

1 Claim.

The invention relates to resin bonded grinding wheels and involves a method for increasing their efliciency. One object of the invention is to prevent deterioration of synthetic resin bonded grinding wheels. Another object of the invention is to secure an actual net increase in the efficiency and/or life of such a wheel. Other ob- Jects will be in part obvious or in part pointed out hereinafter. I

The invention accordingly consists in the several steps and relation and order of each of said steps to one or more of the others thereof.

In the accompanying drawing illustrating one of many possible embodiments of this invention:

Figure 1 is aside elevation of a container;

Figure 2 is a view similar to Figure 1 showing the container sealed;

Figure 3 is a plan view;

Figure 4 is an enlarged cross sectional view;

Figure 5 is a graph.

The invention is concerned particularly with resin bonded grinding wheels comprising abrasive grain bonded with a synthetic resin converted to an infusible product. For some time grinding wheels have been made by mixing a quantity of abrasive in comminuted form with unconverted polymerizable resin, then pressing and curing to convert the resin to its condensation product.

For example, taking a quantity of fused alumina it is mixed with liquid stage phenol formaldehyde resin until each grain is coated with some of the resin, then solid stage but still unconverted phenol formaldehyde .resin is well distributed throughout the mass. Such a mixture is then placed in a mold and pressed to produce a body, in shape a wheel, which when stripped from the mold has adequate strength for ordinary handling. This is then placed in an oven and heated at a suitable temperature, for example of the order of one hundred sixty degrees centigrade, for a number of hours until the resin polymerizes producing the final product which is infusible and sufficiently strong and tough to satisfy the requirements of a grinding wheel.

The foregoing is now understood by those skilled in the abrasive art and a detailed discussion of the manufacture of resin bonded wheels will therefore not be given. It may be noted, however, that silicon carbide or other abrasives may be substituted for the fused alumina and the abrasive grains may be wetted with a plasticizer such as furfural if desired and many variations may be made in the method of manufacturing the wheel. For instance, abrasive grains can be mixed with one hundred per cent liquid stage resin or various consistencies of resin between liquid and dry powder may be used. A

hot press may be used to press and cure themixture in a single operation or partial curing may be effected in the hot press with the final curing in an oven. Furthermore for the phenol formaldehyde may be substituted any one of the alkyd resins, which are resins formed from mixing polybasic acids with polyhydric alcohols. These are sometimes known as the glyptals. A common example is the product of glycerol and -phthalic anhydride, but for the glycerol or glycerine other polyhydric alcohols could be substituted such as anhydroenneaheptitol, pentaerythritol or pentaglycerol and for the polybasic acid, citric, sue-.- cinic, adipic or sebacic acids may be used. That is giyptals are likewise a condensation product, the resin mixture forming a polymer in the hardening stage which may be carried out along the lines already indicated.

Grinding wheels constituting abrasive grains bonded with polymerized synthetic resin have been made in great quantities and used for divers grinding purposes too numerous to list herein. It maybe pointed out, however, that such wheels have been found particularly useful and practical when embodied in thin disks used for cutting off trol manufacture of the wheels more rigorously.

I have discovered'that no matter how exactly the manufacturing process is duplicated there is nevertheless decided variation in the results achieved in a customer's plant with such wheels and by my present invention I greatly reduce the variation in results and also provide a means and method whereby the customer has available for use a'grinding wheel of the type above indicated which is superior to those heretofore available to him.

Referring to Figures 1 to 4 inclusive, I provide a can I. comprising a bottom part II and a top or cover part l2. The bottom II as' well as the-cover I 2 may be made of a single piece of metal or on the other hand it may be built up. The can preferably is made of sheet metal so that it shall be completely impervious and preferably has a coating of tin or some other metal to aluminate rust, or else it may be made of a non-corroding metal such as aluminum. For purposes .5 of economy I prefer a tin plated sheet 'iron container which is commonly referred to as a tin can. The can Ill may be and in the illustrative embodiment of the invention is a motion picture film can such as is regularly used for the transmission of motion picture reels, each can holding a single reel.

I produce a quantity of grinding wheels consisting of. abrasive grain bonded with polymerizable resin bond of the general class known as synthetic resins. The wheels may be made according to present known practice, which is indicated above, or in any other suitable manner. 'Ihe bonding resin may be any of those heretofore mentioned or others such as aniline formaldehyde or urea formaldehyde. I intend to include withinthe scope of this invention the grinding wheels made from any polymerizable synthetic resin excluding the natural resins such as shellac.

2| ln this illustrative embodiment of the invention I provide a number of wheels 20 which are thin cutting-01f wheels. After the manufacture of these wheels or as an incident in the manuiacture thereof I dry them for about ten hours at about one hundred ten degrees centigrade. This drying may be carried out in any suitable oven. Into the oven I also place disks of corrugated paper board 2!. I now remove the wheels 20 and disks 2| from the oven and transfer them directly 36 into the bottom part II and place the cover I2 in position sealing the can in. The corrugated board 2| is protectionand one disk may be placed on the bottom and one on the top as shown in Figure 4.

40 I then tape the joint 22 of the can III with ordinary surgeon's adhesive tape 23 (Figure 2). I provide some paraffin which I heat to one hundred degrees centigrade and with a paint brush I brush this paraflln on to the tape 23. When a the paraflln dries this makes the joint "22 air tight,

The package is now complete and ready for shipment? By heating the" wheelsjto drive out any moisture and by heating the other material so which goes into the can I0 and by sealing the can I exclude moisture from the can and the wheels 2| are retained absolutely dry. The can II should not be opened until it is desired to use the wheels. I show a number of wheels in the 58 can i'n-Figure 4 which is a condition suited to a large manufacturing establishment which may replace a number of wheels in a single day and proceed to use them all. For smaller users it is preferred to provide shallower cans with fewer 00 wheels. In the case of users of great numbers of wheels a larger or deeper can can be used.

Despite the fact that polymerized phenol formaldehyde appears to bee; fairly dense and stable body I have discovered that there is some effect 65 of moisture upon grinding wheels which causes their deterioration. Referring to Figure 5, I show the comparative results of drying and sealing grinding wheels'in containers and failure to take precautions to keep moisture away from the 70 wheels. In Figure 5 the ordinate represents the number of cuts which a cutting-off wheel will give before it is entirely used up, while thei'abscissa represents time, each number representing one week. The upper line on the graph marked J A is the curve for wheels which were preserved from moisture by being packaged as above indicated while the line B is the curve for wheels which were given no such protection but were subject to the vicissitudes of changing atmospheric conditions involving changes of relative 5 humidity as occur in a machine shop stockroom. Selecting a lot of wheels newly received from the manufacturer one half of which represented by the line A were enclosed in cans, the other half of which were not so enclosed, a can was 10 opened and the wheels were immediately put to work and compared with the wheels which were not canned. In the case of the wheels A an average of 462 cuts per wheel was effected while in the. case of unpreserved wheels B an average of i5 463 cuts per wheel was realized. This difference is no difference and within the limits of experimental error or actual differences in the wheels regardless of moisture and indicates that deterioration involves the time factor. One week 0 later a second can was opened and the wheels therefrom gave 468 cuts per wheel whereas wheels which had not been guarded against humidity in any manner gave at this time only 316 cuts per wheel. At the end of the second week 25 another package was opened and other unpreserved wheels were selected and the results indicated in the graph of Figure 5 show respectively 396 cuts per wheel and 302 cuts per wheel.

The graph of Figure 5 indicates results at still later periods. This graph shows a temporary deterioration of the preserved wheels but a recovery in their properties one week later. The graph also shows a sudden deterioration in the case of unpreserved wheels followed by a very 3 late partial recovery which is, however, not maintained. By and large, however, wheels preserved against the effect of moisture give more cuts per wheel than unpreserved wheels at any time after the first few days subsequent to manufacture of 40 the wheel. It may be pertinent to observe in connection with Figure 5 that the-zero date is early in November placing the final date early in January so that fall and winter atmospheres affected the wheels of graph B, which atmos- 46.

pheres are not so humid as summer atmospheres. Undoubtedly during the summer time wheels not preserved against the effect of moisture would deteriorate still more sharply.

' It will be noted from the graph of Figure 5 that as these resin wheels age there is at the outset a. falling off in quality followed by an improvement in quality.- In general this appears to be true of wheels whether preserved from moisture or not. I have no explanation to ofler for this 66 phenomenon but have observed the same thing in' many different tests. All observations were made on phenol formaldehyde bonded grinding wheels. While a single set of tests is represented by the graph of Figure 5 I have also made a great many other tests under widely varying conditions so that I am prepared to state that the results in Figure 5 are typical and no mere accident. What reaction there may be between humid atmosphere and polymerized resin caus- 'ing'the deterioration noted I am not prepared with many thoroughly practical advantages are It will also be observed, as above stated, that a preliminary deterioration in quality appears to be a natural incident in the life of synthetic resin bonded grinding wheels. By my method of sealing the wheels against moisture the recovery from this natural preliminary deterioration is accelerated and also carried to a higher point. In fact it will be observed that from a timefour weeks after the zero date to a time nine weeks after the zero date the wheels which had been retained in cans were actually superior in quality in these same wheels when first made. On the other hand, the wheels not preserved against the successfully achieved. As many possible embodiments may be made of the above invention and as many changes might be made in the embodiment above set forth, it is to be understood that all matter hereinbefore set forth, or shown in the accompanying drawing, is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

I claim:

Method of increasing the life and efllciency of polymerized synthetic resin bonded grinding wheels which comprises heating the wheels 1111- mediately after manufacture thereof to a temperature that will drive out substantially all the contained moisture thereof, then sealing the wheels to prevent access of further moisture from the air or otherwise, and at a later date unsealing the wheels and using them forthwith to grind.

JOHN R. ERIOKSON. 

